As You Were
by Kicking Poe
Summary: Severus Snape returns home after a meeting with Voldemort, only to find an unexpected visitor waiting for him...[2 parts, pre and postHBP]
1. I Balance

AN/Disclaimer: Don't own, don't ask, don't sue. My plan is to post another chapter (when I finish it) that shows how Snape's servitude to Voldemort changes after Dumbledore is killed. Yeah...thanks for reading.

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_While you make pretty speeches  
I'm being cut to shreds  
You feed me to the lions  
A delicate balance..._  
--Radiohead, "Like Spinning Plates"

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"Tea, Severus? Or perhaps you'd like a lemon drop to go with that rather nasty head wound?" Albus Dumbledore sat in a garishly patterned armchair, conspicuously out-of-place in Snape's dreary, dust-ridden house on Spinner's End. He held his own teacup in his long white fingers and peered at the younger man inquiringly over his half-moon spectacles.

Snape's face, blood-spattered and pale, shone eerily in the dark house, and Dumbledore could see his hands shaking with a mixture of surprise and rage. "How did you get in here?" Snape asked quietly, dangerously. "How did you get past –"

"Your wards?" Dumbledore finished. "I admit that they gave me, er, a bit of trouble…not that I expected anything less from you. And you gave me the counterspells a few months ago – do you not remember, Severus?"

Snape did not answer. He moved slowly into the light shed by the candles hovering near Dumbledore's head, his dark eyes glittering strangely. The deep gash on his forehead was ringed by coagulating blood and sweat.

"Why, Albus? Why did you come? So you could pity me?" Snape spat the words viciously out, his voice rising, his hands balled into trembling fists. The pain and weariness that had been etched on his face gave way to anger and cold contempt.

Dumbledore stared at him sadly. "Do you not understand, Severus, that no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you are alone and unlovable, inevitably there are people who care for you? Is that really so strange?"

The pale man had no answer, though his shoulders slumped in deference.

Dumbledore continued. "At Hogwarts, I always wait in your quarters after Voldemort has summoned you. It never seemed to distress you."

"This is my home," Snape responded tiredly. "You had no right –"

"Perhaps not," Dumbledore said with a gentle smile. Noticing that the younger man's strength was failing – after all, Severus was agreeing with him, never a good sign – he stood up quickly and motioned to the nearby steps. "I suggest we move upstairs and see to things before you topple over and damage this lovely rug. We have much to discuss."

Snape stiffened, unwilling to receive any help from the old professor in his own house, and led the way, though his steps were uncertain and his hand traced the wall for support.

"As you know, the new term starts next week," Dumbledore began as they mounted the stairs together. "Now that Voldemort has returned – physically returned – strict security measures are in place. But…I have a special favor to ask of you."

"Potter, again?" Snape muttered darkly, though his lips seemed to twitch into a wry smile. "Haven't I been through enough tonight?"

Dumbledore looked sharply at him and asked, "Was Voldemort more ruthless than usual, Severus?"

"Nothing that I haven't experienced before," Snape answered hesitantly. "But he was…less than pleased that I failed to bring him news of the Order."

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence as they passed into Snape's bedroom. The less-than-lucid man dropped heavily onto his unkempt bed while Dumbledore gathered the healing potions Snape had prepared for the occasion.

"I believe you were saying something about Potter, sir," Snape said after rapidly downing the contents of several vials. The topic seemed to come up in conversation at the beginning of every school year.

"Ah, yes. I will be absent from Hogwarts for a good deal of the year – to look for the Horcruxes, namely – and I need you to look after Harry while I am gone."

"Of course, Head_master_." Snape emphasized the second syllable with a good-natured smirk. The covert cheerfulness drained out of his face as suddenly as it appeared. Holding Dumbledore's gaze with bright eyes, he added quietly, "I will protect him with my life."

"I know," the aged professor answered simply.

Their discussion about the new term continued for some time before Snape swallowed his last potion, which threw him into a deep, dreamless sleep. Dumbledore stayed by his side, studying the younger man's shiny hair, hawkish nose, and unfathomable expression. As the first glimmer of sunlight streaked into the old house, he repeated Snape's words: "I will protect you with my life."


	2. II Endlessly

AN: I hope you don't want to kill me. Serious apologies for the obscene delay of this update. I'm just glad I finished it before Sev decided to run off on me again. Best wishes.

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He almost missed Potter. _Almost_. Merely for the entertainment value, of course. 

Somehow he always associated Apparation with the boy. Maybe it was the less-than-pleasant migraine they both induced. Or that fact that Apparation often led to Voldemort, and Voldemort _always_ led to pain. Simple mathematical formula suggested that Harry was a font of agony. How marvelous.

_Move over, bloody Merlin. Severus Snape has just –_

A wrenching plop – like a suction cup being torn away from glass – funneled him back into reality as his body rematerialized…three feet above solid ground. Splayed fingers scuffed along the pavement as he landed, the pebbly surface snagging and carving into his palms like burrs. Immediately he sought his wand and, crouching under a lonely streetlight like a common animal, probed the wind and shadows for danger. Nothing. As he expected. Spinner's End had always been docile except for the odd drunken Muggle or two. These nights – yes, even those nights when he returned home so wearied from blood-loss that he slept on the cusp of his front door and dreamt of his mother – he would pause and bleed into the cracks of the sidewalk and confirm his safety. It was a habit. And habits, unlike spirits and bodies, are hard to break.

It was lucky his neighbors were not the sort of people who noticed much.

Snape cursed himself for remaining too long underneath the streetlight and hurried onward to the house at the end of the drive, the house with fixtures pronging out in odd and grotesque angles like limbs. He dispelled his protective wards with a few charms and gestures that slid into place like keyhole tumblers.

The door gaped open like a hungry mouth, a crescent of darkness between two wooden lips. Inside…the only thing that greeted him was the crumbling smell of stained parchment and potions. No Potter. Every day he half-expected the boy to be waiting behind the door with an _Avada Kedavra _in his hand and that stupid flash of impudence in his – no, Lily's – eyes. And every day he was disappointed. Where was the boy's sense of vengeance? His ideas of gallantry? His damnable strut and speeches and tonged hatred that pierced Snape's back?

Surely it was no secret where he lived. It had been a Snape residence for generations, and he had always presumed the Order kept sharp records of its members for situations such as these. It didn't take a Muggle to figure out…

But perhaps they thought he would be hiding behind the Dark Lord's arcane shield, safe in the folds of treachery and the dark arts. They couldn't know that the Death Eaters hated him as well, hated him more deeply and savagely than even Dumbledore's foremost allies.

The night in the tower. Here Snape's thoughts always unraveled, and he reached for a handy flask of firewhiskey to still his unease. Now then…

It was true. He had done the deed once thought impossible, something neither Voldemort nor time itself could accomplish: the killing of Albus Dumbledore. And he had thus become Voldemort's pet, the prize he touted around like a show dog. Managing to get hold of the Dark Lord's slippery favor did little to enhance relations with the other underlings.

Astonishing to think he had not had a conversation with anyone besides Voldemort (and who could call that conversation?) in almost two months. Wormtail had been removed from the manor shortly after that night, as a token of Voldemort's trust and (more relevantly) as a result of a regrettable incident in which the simpering fool had brought up the unhappy memory of one James Potter and Snape had felt obligated to rearrange certain parts of his anatomy. The Death Eaters paid him the icy formalities demanded by his new stature while trying to figure out how to make his murder appear accidental. The Order…well, there was nothing to expect there.

Empty house, empty duties, empty life.

It was ironic, really, how he had hungered for the day he could shrug off the duality of his servitude and live happily ever after under the tutelage of a true wizarding master and the only man he would face the grave for. Instead, he was miserable. Of course, he had always imagined that that man would be Dumbledore. Of course. He had invested in the plan like everyone else, treating Dumbledore's victory as an inevitability.

"Daft old fool," he muttered aloud, trying to mean it. He couldn't.

Snape glanced indifferently at the firewhiskey in his hand and pondered how much he must have drank to take such a trek down self-pity lane. It hardly mattered, as liquor was probably the only thing keeping him alive. He hadn't eaten recently enough to remember it, and sleep came prepackaged in potion jars.

_Why_, he wondered darkly, _didn't I try this before – pleasing the Dark Lord? The workload is wonderfully light, the health plan is lovely and torture-free, and I'm well on my way to becoming a wretched rum-pot hermit! Oh wait, it's my utterly repulsive habit of doing the honorable thing for the good of humanity. Damn._

He had finally garnered immunity from Voldemort's suspicion, yet there was no one to pass information to. Leave it to the Order to make a mess out of an opportune moment.

He frequently toyed with the idea of contacting a member who knew Dumbledore well enough to understand his harebrained logic, someone who would believe the snarled truth. Lupin seemed like a safe bet, intelligent enough to give the matter serious thought and still guilt-ridden about the past. Still, he and Harry were close, nigh inseparable, and there was a heavy probability his loyalty would lie with Potter and not with Snape. Minerva was the next obvious choice but…would she understand? He barely understood himself, and he had been Dumbledore's confidante.

"Really, Albus, a bit more forethought would not have been amiss." There was something inherently absurd about the situation. He smiled wearily.

"Shall I write a letter? It would become kindle, ineffectual. Should I march into the Ministry and claim clemency? I would be dragged through the streets and worse. What, then?" His voice tapered off as the firewhiskey gave way to sobriety. "What shall I do?"

He would wait.

Perhaps they would come to kill him, perhaps they would seek his help.

But they would come.

They always did.


End file.
